


Kaleidoscope and Barrikuya

by zenonaa



Category: Dangan Ronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc
Genre: Multi, Tiger & Bunny AU, hinted ishimondo, hinted sakuraoi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-09
Updated: 2018-08-09
Packaged: 2019-06-24 10:37:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15628896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zenonaa/pseuds/zenonaa
Summary: 'Even with the senses available to them, the audience listened to the music that the television company played, or the rumble of people picked up during recording. Whatever the show wanted them to hear, they heard. Not the ringing between Touko’s ears or her shallow, uneven panting, and they saw what Touko saw. Her foot twisted a bit as she stepped forward, causing her to stagger. She flailed her arms, but managed to stabilise herself and kept going. As jittery as she was, she refused to disappoint the viewers and most importantly, him.The announcer’s voice chirped in her earpiece.“Welcome back to Hero TV.”'Certain people are born with a superhuman power, and in Hope’s Peak City,  Togami receives a visitor with a proposition.





	Kaleidoscope and Barrikuya

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Einzel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Einzel/gifts).



During the day, Hope’s Peak City looked like a lost civilisation, washed out with grey and blue hues. Buildings towered over the intricate network of roads, dominating the endless stretch of sky, and many, many, statues dotted the city, but at night, the city’s mood advanced by centuries. Warmer hued colours consumed the city, a starving fire with an unsatisfiable appetite, stinking up the air with the smell of spices and smoke. Sleek, silver trains with long noses careered along rails that wound through the city, not bound to only ground level, whizzing far above people’s heads too. They operated during the day as well, but when darkness usurped the sky, they hurtled like shooting stars.

A loud thump above one of the carriages jolted everyone onboard. People tensed, clustering into little groups or huddling by themselves, and they tried to appear smaller by hunching their shoulders and stooping their heads a little, all except one person. This person, dressed in a grey tracksuit, gazed up at the roof with the rest of the passengers, but he didn’t stay still for long. He spun around and shoved his way toward the door at one end of the carriage, and everyone that he elbowed out of his way tumbled aside passively.

When he reached the door, loud screeching grated on the ears of those present. The man looked over his shoulder. Seconds later, two men dropped into the carriage through a hole ripped into the roof, wearing clothes that were as outstanding as the other man’s tracksuit intentionally wasn’t. One of the men was gangling and wore black with red accents on the joints, red boots, shoulder pads and gloves, and there was red on his eye mask that resembled part of the distinctive mark of a widow spider, and his crotch completed the pattern. His outfit was vaguely reminiscent of a cyclist’s attire.

Beside him, the other man’s maroon mask covered not just his eyes but his head and cheeks too, and his white outfit had a different pattern on the front, marked with brown lines, also like a cyclist’s attire. Most notable were his eyes, rendered completely black by his mask.

Whispers and shouts overcame the passengers in a frenzy.

“It’s the Green Widower and Bloodhound!”

The only green component of the man dressed mostly in black was his long hair, which was streaked with red dye, but Bloodhound lived up to his name, with the flaps on his mask resembling ears and his gloves bearing claws. They both stared at the man in the tracksuit.

“It’s the end of the line for you!” Bloodhound snarled, raising a fist in front of him.

“Not literally,” Green Widower pointed out with an awkward smile. He scratched at his chin. “There are several more stops and the train’s still moving, but you’ve got nowhere to run.”

As if fate slammed down its hand with ill-judgement, the train stopped and the doors either side of the carriage drew open. The man in the tracksuit dashed out, carrying a duffel bag under his arm, and he burrowed through crowds as he tried to flee.

From the helicopter looming overhead, he seemed ant-sized, but the camerawoman zoomed in and after some blurring, his image blew up and he came into focus.

“And the thief has disembarked,” announced a man sitting in the helicopter, holding a microphone to his mouth. 

Beside him, his redheaded companion pointed her camera at the scene below, following the man in the tracksuit as he sprinted down a flight of steps and recording his every movement until he disappeared into the station building. 

“Will Green Widower and Bloodhound, his partner in more ways than one, apprehend him?” the announcer wondered aloud. “Or will the thief get away with stolen diamonds worth millions? Stay tuned!”

A beat passed.

“All right, we’ve got one minute of commercials,” said the announcer, dropping the hammy pleasantness and volume. He touched two fingers to the side of his jaw, placing them below his earpiece. “Togami- shacho, what do we do?”

Across the city, a blond man in a suit stood in a room where monitors occupied an entire wall, each one showing different perspectives of the outside of the station in District Sixteen. By now, Green Widower and Bloodhound had followed the thief into the inside part of the station, and so couldn’t be seen anymore.

The blond man pushed up his square, white-framed glasses. 

“Hey, Touko,” he said, and someone squeaked behind him. He didn’t turn around and folded his arms over his chest. “You know what to do.”

“R-Right,” said the same person who squeaked. Touko Fukawa was a head shorter than him and her aubergine hair was styled into two long twin braids. She adjusted her circular framed goggles and opened the compact mirror that she had been holding in one hand, in case a situation like this called for it.

Her brow furrowed in concentration, and her body began to sheen blue. Just as she started to lean into the mirror, it sucked her in, and immediately after, she was spat out into a tunnel. It seemed to go on forever either side of her, and she looked around, floating, weightless.

For all she knew, the tunnel did finish at some point, but she had never reached the end of it. Then again, she had never tried to because as soon as she found the right exit, she left. Touko had entered the tunnel through a paneless window, and many more plastered the surface area all around her, showing snapshots of a variety of scenes frozen in time. Their colours bled out beyond their screens and tinted Touko’s skin with their light. Her dark grey full body suit, which covered everything apart from her head, remained unaffected, as did the leather holster strapped to her right thigh. Even as a keen reader and an experienced fiction writer, Touko would struggle to fully describe such an otherworldly environment.

When she entered this separate dimension, a short commercial break had been taking place. The hit television show, ‘Hero TV’, would resume its broadcast once the break finished, but here, time didn’t seem to pass, not on the outside and not inside of it either. Or if it did, it passed very, very slowly, which she greatly preferred over returning to reality with hours unaccounted for, and Touko flew through the tunnel at a slow and steady pace, glancing this way and that, occasionally pausing to study a particular window before proceeding forward again.

After peeking through a lot of windows, she came across one that showed a grey wall with a dark green stripe running horizontal at the top. The image trembled. Part of a poster advertising an opera could be seen near the edge, and from the kind of poster and the colour scheme, she knew that this was her destination. 

Touko kicked her legs and boosted herself toward the window, soaring through.

On  the other side was a corridor in District Sixteen’s train station. She jumped out of a puddle and stumbled as she landed on solid ground. People dodged out of her way. Sparse crowds stopped to stare, and she glared at them, holding her tongue for professionalism’s sake. They should have been used to this by now. Her heart raced. So should she.

She grimaced and pressed a discreet notch on the rim of her goggles. A pinprick of green light lit up on that spot. The thief was nowhere in sight, so she hurried down the corridor, trying to avoid bumping into people, and swerved into the next one, already out of breath.

With every step, her heart bobbed up and down. For those watching the developments unravel in the comfort of their own homes, or on their phones as their train sped them to their next destination, they were only exposed to certain sights and sounds. They didn’t feel the bounce back of hard floor against her feet, the tightness in her chest and the pressure from indoor heating cranked too high. 

In an attempt to help people get off at their stop when music or a crowded carriage could prevent other senses from alerting a commuter, each district’s station had been assigned a certain smell. Touko inhaled. The smell of beer hops wafted over her, but that couldn’t be transmitted to the viewers. 

Even with the senses available to them, the audience listened to the music that the television company played, or the rumble of people picked up during recording. Whatever the show wanted them to hear, they heard. Not the ringing between Touko’s ears or her shallow, uneven panting, and they saw what Touko saw. 

Her foot twisted a bit as she stepped forward, causing her to stagger. She flailed her arms, but managed to stabilise herself and kept going. As jittery as she was, she refused to disappoint the viewers and most importantly, _him._

The announcer’s voice chirped in her earpiece.

“Welcome back to Hero TV, the go-to show for all your hero needs. For folks just tuning in, diamonds worth millions of yen was stolen from ‘Fora Selec Thew’, and our favourite superhero couple Bloodhound and Green Widower are hot on the criminal’s tail. As the first on the scene, they’ve bagged one hundred points, but will they rack up more and capture the crook? We bring this to you live from District Sixteen - ”

Footsteps spluttered at one end of the corridor. Touko was halfway down the corridor at this point. The footfall didn’t belong to someone on their way home after a busy day, or a worker heading to their night shift, but possessed a mantic energy, and when Touko whipped her head around, her eyes locked onto the thief. He lurched forward, heading her way with no care to who or what lay ahead of him.

As the distance between him and Touko shrunk rapidly, she stiffened. No way could she fight him, not with her slender frame, with her lack of fighting experience. All she could do was avoid being flattened and give chase. She scrambled out of the way, making sure her goggles kept recording him.

“Oi, piss-for-brains!” yelled Bloodhound from the ceiling, back-to-back with Green Widower, their arms hooked at the elbows.

“P-Piss-for-brains?” Touko said, wrinkling her nose, but Bloodhound hadn’t been talking to her.

The thief glanced back but kept running. While Bloodhound’s legs were tucked up toward his chest, Green Widower carried him on his back and sprinted across the ceiling in a way that he always had one foot touching it. Blue light emitted from Green Widower’s body, like that which had been around Touko when she entered her mirror and until just after she had fully risen out of the puddle.

Bumping into people slowed down the thief, while Green Widower had no one to evade on the ceiling. Therefore, Green Widower easily overtook him. 

Bloodhound unlinked their arms and slammed down onto the anti-slip platform panels below, not far from the thief. He bared his teeth in a wolfish grin. The thief widened his eyes and bolted off, with the spectators too stunned to change from their passive role, some even side-stepping to let him pass so they wouldn’t get run over. 

With great speed, Bloodhound stampeded over and leaped forward, tackling the thief to the floor. They rolled but in the end, Bloodhound was on top. Above them, Green Widower stopped glowing and fell from the ceiling. He flipped in midair and landed expertly on the same surface as everyone else.

“And Bloodhound and the Green Widower have caught the bad guy!” roared the announcer as the spectators erupted into cheers. 

Green Widower cupped the back of his head and waved his other hand with a sincere but creepy smile, which if it had a noise, would have been nails down a chalkboard. Bloodhound sat on the thief, posture stooped, and leered at no one in particular. He might have been trying to smile.

“Oi,” came the voice of the blond man with white glasses from Touko’s earpiece. “Get closer. We need some shots of our sponsors’ logos.”

Touko nodded, shaking the camera in her goggles by doing so, and approached them. On Green Widower’s chest, in black font, was the name of a Chinese restaurant, and on Bloodhound’s chest, over his heart, was the emblem for Bepsi. 

“And our company name too,” said the blond man.

She shifted slowly and made sure to get the writing on their shoulders, as instructed. Across one shoulder in kanji and in romaji on the other, in gold text, on both costumed men, was ‘Togami’.

* * *

 

In the sea of buildings that made up Hope’s Peak City was a tower called Togami HQ. It belonged to a young billionaire who had taken over the company from his father a few years ago. Or, rather, the position had been thrust upon him after his parent’s sudden death. Touko remembered that the very next day, he had come in, not taking even one day off despite what happened. He had thrown himself into his work more so than usual and continued to power through with the same level of formidable diligence to this day. People had doubted that a boy fresh out of high school would cope, no matter what his father had insisted should happen in the event of his demise, but the company had since thrived like it had never done before.

The automatic doors yawned open. Air conditioning hummed in the blue-hued room. Byakuya Togami took a few paces forward, leaving enough space behind him that Touko could follow him in. A silver-haired maid darted past them to the table, put down a tray, and bowed before leaving. Seconds later, the doors shut.

Further in, already seated at the table, were two men. One looked like a standard businessman. Short, dark hair, plain suit with tie, and the only bit of colour on him was his dark purple tie. His companion, in contrast, seemed like an eccentric time traveller dressed up for Britain in the 1960’s, and wore a white suit accented with orange, a few of his shirt buttons unfastened at the top, a matching trilby hat and a loosened tie. The first man turned his stony gaze on the new arrivals while the other man gave a crooked smile and saluted lazily with one hand.

“Don’t worry, we weren’t waiting too long,” promised the second man. As he inclined his head forward, his scraggly blond hair, hanging limply down to his chin, swayed a bit. He pinched the rim of his hat and twitched it.

“I wasn’t worried,” Byakuya told him.

Byakuya pulled out a chair and sat down opposite him. Touko dragged out another chair and seated herself a short distance away from the table. She plucked a pen from behind her ear and positioned the nib at the top of her clipboard. He crossed one leg over the other and poured himself some green tea from the teapot on the tray. Three other cups flanked the teapot still. 

What reason would Byakuya have to be worried?

“I’m not the one with anything to prove,” said Byakuya. “All I’m losing is time that I could be spending elsewhere.”

The man with the hat chuckled. He slouched, resting his chin in his hand and hiding his goatee from view. His blue eyes studied Byakuya with a gleam.

“I assure you, Togami, this is a proposal that you will be very interested in,” said the plain-looking man.

“We’ll see.” Byakuya pursed his lips.

Touko jotted down everything being said.

“My name is Jin Kirigiri,” said the plain-looking man. He gestured toward his companion. “And this is Koichi Kizakura. Currently, I head a private tutoring company for Noted Entities with Extraordinary Talents. NEXT, as people call them. We currently have five students.”

“But with some funding, we could train more,” said Koichi as he rubbed his index finger and thumb together. His wide grin distorted the shape of his thin moustache, and the skin by his eyes crinkled.

“So you’re after money for your school,” said Byakuya bluntly. Touko flung a dirty look their way.

Koichi remained slouched and flapped a hand. “Ah, but it’s not like it’s all going toward alcohol, is it? This is something even more important. The Togami Conglomerate is a fair way down the scoreboard despite owning Hero TV, and it has mostly been the same two heroes doing all the work... and they’re getting on in age.”

His eyes stayed just as playful but his smile became more subdued. More like a smirk.

“We’re astute guys, but I’m sure other people have noticed too,” said Koichi. “NEXT are a fairly new phenomenon. They’ve only been cropping up in the last few decades, and younger, fitter people in their prime are going to be the ones bagging all the points, not middle-aged men. By the way, can we smoke in here?”

All of that, even the last request, was spoken in the same casual tone.

“No,” said Byakuya.

Koichi sighed and got out a lollipop from his chest pocket. He unwrapped the plastic and stuck the sweet into into mouth. His tongue pushed it to one corner of his mouth. It clacked against his teeth.

“So what do you say?” asked Jin.

“That was ‘no’ to both your requests,” said Byakuya icily. “Bloodhound has the ability to track people by their smell, as long as he has access to something that they have touched within the last twenty-four hours. That’s why he was first on the scene and him and Green Widower were able to pursue him. We don’t need more heroes.”

“But what if it wasn’t a petty thief they were chasing?” asked Koichi. He removed his lollipop and wagged it, pointing the sweet end at Byakuya. “Are your heroes capable of handling all possible crimes? Assault? Kidnap? Murder? Terrorism? Those are the crimes that people are most concerned about. Recovering a few diamonds won’t net you big points, like catching a bloodthirsty killer like Genocider Syo would.”

Touko accidentally scribbled a jagged line across the page. Byakuya’s face betrayed nothing.

“How many NEXT have you got?” asked Koichi. He began counting off his fingers. “There’s those two, and your gloomy assistant...”

She glared. Byakuya’s nostrils flared.

“Better gloomy than a vagrant,” hissed Touko. 

Koichi’s eyebrows rose. His lollipop froze in place for a few seconds, and then he returned it to his mouth.

Jin squared his shoulders, regarding Byakuya with flinty eyes.

“We’ve done our research, Togami. Those two aren’t your biggest point-getters. They’re your only ones,” said Jin. “And new heroes are going to be coming onto the scene. Some already have. With us, you would have a steady stream of heroes who have been trained and will continue training while representing you.”

Touko glanced at Byakuya, whose brow had creased. He stared downward, drumming his fingers against his arm, and finally raised a hand to his chin.

“You have five students?” Byakuya asked without looking up. Koichi lifted his head a fraction.

“Would you like to see them in action?” asked Jin. “We’ve brought them with us, so we can provide a demonstration of our work. If you got the Green Widower, Bloodhound and your assistant together, we can show them off in a friendly spar.”

For a few seconds, Touko noted down what was being said, but when her mind caught up to the present, she tensed violently and jerked her head up.

“Don’t make such demands!” Touko snapped, gripping her pen tightly. “I don’t fight. I can’t fight. I won’t fight. That’s not - ”

“Fine,” said Byakuya. He met their eyes calmly. “Let’s go somewhere more spacious. There’s an abandoned factory just outside of the city that will be sufficient.”

Touko squealed, jumped up, slapped her clipboard against her legs, and bowed so deeply that her braids flopped down and smacked the floor. “I’ll be r-right there!”

She held her position. Kokichi scratched his temple.

Jin blinked a few times before saying, “That was a quick change of heart.”

Her body straightened.

“That’s not it. My heart is always with Byakuya-sama, you see,” explained Touko, hugging her clipboard.

Koichi cracked a grin. Byakuya continued gazing into space.

* * *

 

Up until a few years ago, the building that Touko, Byakuya and everyone else walked into used to be a clothing factory until a fire devastated it, killing tens of people. She had woken up here once before, some time after the tragedy, and she had left in a daze. To some, that might have sounded shocking, but this sort of thing used to be a regular occurrence for her. Above their heads loomed a network of support beams, the blue metal discoloured by heat and with rust in places. The factory consisted of two floors, but the upper floor had been particularly ravaged and mostly destroyed, so much of the grubby arched roof was viewable. Streaks of light seeped through misshapen holes and crevices, and dust particles danced ring o’ roses in the spotlights.

A low whistle blew behind them. Touko turned and as she expected, Koichi had let off that sound. He cradled the back of his neck as he inspected their surroundings with Jin, who permanently looked like he hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in a long time. With them were the five students that they claimed to have. They all wore a uniform appropriate for gym class, comprising of sneakers, a white t-shirt and navy unisex long-legged shorts. Two of the girls came to an expected height for people in their late teens or early twenties, a male fitted a standard height for those like him, and the last two, a woman and a man, surpassed their companions’ heights, but only the woman was taller than Byakuya. Just one of the girls was shorter than Touko.

“So these are the runts, huh?” asked Bloodhound, shorter than two of the five. He cracked his knuckles and showed off his teeth wolfishly. “You got their parents’ consent forms on ya? Extra packs of diapers?”

“They ’re all around the same age as your boss,” Koichi pointed out while a few of the students glared, though the others seemed equally unamused, but Bloodhound blanked Koichi, eyeing the students like they were helpings on a platter.

The tallest male, who had a brown pompadour that had gone out of fashion before people even knew about the existence of NEXT, strained to keep his composure, hiking up one end of his mouth in a tight, lopsided smirk.

“These are the guys we’re meant to be beating up?” asked the male. “Their hips will probably break if we breathe out too much air near them. This feels like elder abuse.”

Green Widower jolted his head back like he just received an electric shock, features asymmetrical, while Bloodhound’s jaw clenched and his cheeks began to fill with pink.

“Remember, you’re representing our school,” warned Jin, but Byakuya apparently didn’t share this complaint in regards to his own heroes. He turned to Byakuya with the closest to a smile that he had given so far. “I’ll let our students introduce themselves. Shall we give them some space?”

Jin held his hands behind his back and without waiting for an answer or even acknowledgement, he retreated to one of the walls. Byakuya and Koichi did the same, standing themselves either side of him.

“You may begin,” said Jin.

The two groups of NEXT faced each other.

“Three against five?” said Green Widower, oozing a grin. “That’s not fair on you guys, is it? You’d need at least double our number to suffer a defeat that isn’t humiliating.”

Touko hesitated, but it didn’t take her long to count to three. Chills drenched her. Right. She had agreed to join in. Still, her first instinct was to run for cover or cower, but her legs wouldn’t budge and other than trembling, her body wouldn’t respond. The first person to move was the shortest woman, who leaped into the air with her hands above her head. 

At the peak of her jump, the woman tilted so she was upside down, and she plummeted downward with her arms still stretched out beyond her head. Touko and her teammates braced themselves, but the woman didn’t go near them and dived into the ground like one would dive into a swimming pool. 

Exactly like that. Her body glowed a gentle blue as the ground swallowed her whole, leaving behind no crumbs, no splatter. The trio squinted at the ground, while their opponents’ countenance didn’t change at all.

“W-Where did she go?” asked Touko, squeezing her hands together tightly.

Bloodhound sniffed ungraciously. His face remained screwed.

“I can’t smell her,” he said, and moments later, a large diamond crashed into him. He rolled several times. Touko shrieked and bent forward with her hands on her head.

The diamond didn’t bounce or tumble like Bloodhound. It hovered for a moment where it had smashed into Bloodhound and then transformed into the tallest of the men, the one with the pompadour. When he landed, small clouds of dust poofed by his feet, and he gritted his teeth, but he wasn’t in pain - the corners of his lips twisted upward.

Green Widower gasped and staggered over to Bloodhound with a hand extended, but then the woman who had vanished shot up from the ground just in front of Green Widower, and she dealt a punch to the underside of his chin.

He stumbled back with a yelp, and losing his balance, he fell down with an additional squawk.

“Impressed?” Jin asked Byakuya at the edge of the factory. 

Byakuya’s smooth features were unreadable. Jin turned back to watch the fight.

Touko looked this way and that, hugging herself. Bloodhound had returned to his feet and thrown himself into a fistfight with the pompadour guy, who was able to turn parts of his body into diamond, ideal for punches and body parts that he predicted Bloodhound would aim at. Both exchanged heated cuss words between huffs as their strikes whooshed and thudded. 

Nearby, Green Widower dodged the next attack from the woman who could flit in and out of the ground as she pleased like it was water. He swung a fist at the woman and caught her on the cheek. She tottered to the side and before she could recover from the first hit, Green Widower continued on his onslaught, dealing blow after blow, and though he lacked Bloodhound’s raw power and ferverence, his fighting style involved a lot of unpredictable movements, almost like he was breakdancing, his limbs jutting at strange angles as he glided from one stance to the next, sometimes striking, sometimes feigning. On top of that, or maybe partly due to that, the woman seemed to be in a stunned state, mesmerized, and she only managed to clumsily block some of his attacks until she fell onto the ground, not into it.

The remaining three students had been standing back up to this point. One of the women had long violet hair and wore dark purple gloves, while the other had scraggly white hair and leathery skin. Despite her appearance, the woman with white hair didn’t seem older than the others, and her hair thrashed against her back as she rushed over to Green Widower. She wasn’t just tall but wide as well, yet despite her heavy footsteps, she didn’t emit a single sound. Therefore, she was able to reach Green Widower without him hearing her approach, and she kicked his back hard. He was tossed through the air like a ragdoll and smacked painfully into a wall.

With Green Widower down at least for the time being, Bloodhound preoccupied with his own fight and Touko keeping to herself, the woman with white hair dropped to one knee next to the woman able to swim through solid matter, and she cupped the back of the smaller woman’s head, gently lifting it, while her other held her companion’s hand.

“Are you all right, Asahina?” asked the white-haired woman. She brought her head closer, causing her hair to brush against the cheek of who could only be Asahina, the white hair standing out starkly against Asahina’s skin.

“I’m fine,” said Asahina, her dark hair tied back in a ponytail. A paperclip kept her fringe in check. The white-haired woman smiled softly and helped Asahina up.

Touko turned away from them and watched the other fight taking place. Bloodhound reeled back and looked past his opponent. He spotted the downed Green Widower.

“Yuusuke!” he bellowed, and he sprinted over even though the man with the pompadour was more than able to continue their brawl. Bloodhound’s footsteps pounded and he pulled back his fist, growling, but halfway there, he was ripped from the ground by an invisible force.

The shorter of the two men had his arm stretched forward, and as he slowly raised it, Bloodhound elevated too. All Bloodhound could do was cycle his legs uselessly through the air, only able to make small movements side-to-side as he squirmed. His captor had a very serious face. Between his thick eyebrows, his skin puckered, and his red eyes were absolutely focused.

No matter how much Bloodhound flailed, he couldn’t break free, and the man with the pompadour charged toward him, kicking off the ground on the way over. Mid flight, he changed into diamond, and he ploughed into Bloodhound. Both collided into the ground together.

Only the man with the pompadour rose afterwards. 

He swaggered over to his teammates. Touko gripped herself tighter and her feet dragged as she shuffled backward. She made sure to keep everyone in her field of vision. Her body shook as she got out her compact mirror from under her clothes, dipping her hand down her neckline, and her eyes darted about frantically in search of a reflective surface.

Across the open room, the violet-haired woman who up to now had kept to the sidelines now finally strode forward. Blue light flickered across her body and she summoned an ogre three times as big as the white-haired woman. 

The ogre fixed its eyes on Touko and ran toward her. Touko could have used her mirror to escape. She should have used her mirror to escape and gone far, far away from here. But Touko, who had barely any fighting experience, who had been hit too many times since she had been a child, froze up, and she watched the ogre’s fist sail toward her.

To her surprise, the ogre passed through Touko harmlessly, not pounding a hole in her like she expected, or leaving any mark. Not a single hair moved on her and her skirt didn’t flutter even once, but though she didn’t feel anything, she shrieked and blanched. Straight after, the white-haired woman tried to follow up with her own attack, but her fist stopped just short of Touko. There was a loud crack and the woman flipped back, landing beside her teammates. Blue electricity rippled in front of Touko across an otherwise invisible plane floating in front of her, rectangular and wide enough to shield Touko. It had almost certainly appeared there prior to the ogre’s attack. 

Koichi and Jin stared for a short while, and then in unison, they turned to Byakuya.

His body glowed blue. Sweat beaded on his forehead.

“You’re a NEXT too?” Jin exclaimed.

Byakuya didn’t bother answering. He ran forward and positioned himself between Touko and the invisible shield, with his back toward her. The ogre leered down at them.

Touko trembled. Her legs wobbled. In a small voice, she said, “B-Byakuya-sama...”

“Don’t just stand there, you dolt,” he said. The ogre punched him, but its hand carried on going through him like it had done with Touko. He turned his head so she could see half of his face and added, “It’s an illusion. It can’t hurt you.”

“Right,” said Touko. Next to Byakuya, she felt calmer and safe, and was torn between swooning and passing out with relief.

Asahina balled her hands into fists.

“Kirigiri-chan’s powers might be illusions, but ours aren’t!” Asahina cried out. 

She dived into the ground, and she wasn’t the only one on the move. The pompadour guy lowered his head, like a bull about to gallop forward, and his male companion began to glow blue. 

Like Bloodhound, Touko started to drift upward due to an unseeable force created by the man with the thick eyebrows. Byakuya hurled out his arm and launched a spray of invisible shards at him, each individual one smaller than the plane that he summoned before. In order to avoid them, the male had to sacrifice his concentration, and Touko was freed. Her feet returned to the ground. Some of the shards fired by Byakuya sliced the man’s skin, and he cringed and touched a hand to a wound on his cheek. 

Blood. Touko averted her eyes, feeling woozy. If she stared too long, she would faint, and if she fainted, her other self would take over, and Touko didn’t want that. She couldn’t let that happen. Her desire to protect Byakuya hardened her resolve.

Byakuya activated his powers and formed a shield beneath him and Touko. He levitated it with them on it, lifting them off the ground, and Touko drew closer to his side.

Asahina emerged from the ground underneath them, but by then they had risen high enough that she couldn’t reach them even by jumping. Despite being able to swim through solid matter, she seemed unable to fly. Her fingers couldn’t even skim the platform, and she winced when she touched down again. Though Green Widower had been defeated, Asahina hadn’t left their fight unscathed.

The white-haired woman squatted and then leaped up. She was able to attain a height much greater than Asahina, but when she threw a punch at them, her fist rammed into something solid. 

A wave of blue light swept through the transparent flat surface between her and the other two. Byakuya had generated another barrier. It didn’t break, dent or even shake, and the woman swooped back down to join the others on the ground. The man with the thick eyebrows turned his attention onto the pompadour guy, and he floated him over to Touko and Byakuya, suspending him in mid-air above them.

When he was high enough, the man with the thick eyebrows released him. During the fall, the man with the pompadour changed into diamond, but even someone with his hardness rebounded off the barrier without doing it any damage. Touko watched the man revert back to normal as he fell. She shivered. Byakuya had surrounded himself and Touko with barriers from all sides in a box structure, but though they had protected themselves from their opponents, they couldn’t safely leave either. They had reached a deadlock.

“Can you see any reflective surfaces?” muttered Byakuya.

Touko raised a hand to her forehead and studied the factory. Places that the Sun didn’t touch were as dark and dull as her outfit, and she shook her head. Even if she could travel to another area in the factory, all she would be able to provide was a distraction, and against five opponents, that wouldn’t help because with their number, they could deal with more than one person at a time. Maybe if Green Widower and Bloodhound were up, then they could have come up with a plan, but they showed no signs of rejoining the battle.

The woman with white hair picked up Asahina. Her palm cushioned Aoi’s behind, and she drew back her arm, readying a throw.

They didn’t know if Asahina could travel through barriers, but now was a bad time to find out. 

Slow claps echoed from the side of the room. Touko and Byakuya turned, and so did the students. Asahina remained in the palm of the woman with white hair.

Jin lowered his hands and strolled over. Koichi sauntered toward them with his hands in his pockets. Both grinned.

“I hope that taster whetted your appetite,” said Jin. He didn’t shout, but the large room carried his voice. His violet eyes stared up at them. Touko noted that they were same colour as the eyes of the girl with violet hair who could create illusions.

Someone groaned nearby. The sound came from Green Widower. He raised his head groggily.

“These students and more would represent your company,” said Jin, not breaking eye contact with Byakuya. In the background, the man with the pompadour dabbed a handkerchief against the cheek of the man with thick eyebrows. “We would also be happy to have Green Widower and Bloodhound help train the new recruits, and our training wouldn’t be just for those we take on... but for the four of you too.”

“I’m not a fighter,” grumbled Touko, but Byakuya was holding his chin thoughtfully as he gazed down at Jin.

Green Widower limped over to Bloodhound and helped him up. Both were conscious.

“Togami, you were incredible,” said Jin. “And with us, we could unlock your full potential.”

Touko bristled.

“I’m here too!” she said, but she couldn’t disagree with Jin. “And of course Byakuya-sama was incredible. It’s a given, right? He’s perfect.”

She fidgeted, beaming widely, well aware of her face warming and unashamed of it. 

Koichi gave a short laugh.

“Fukawa-chan’s not too shabby either. We’ve seen her on Hero TV,” said Koichi. He winked and whipped a hand out of his pocket to point up at Touko. “Her form-fitting non-glitzy outfit stands out, and she has a useful power too. After hearing some interviews - ” - which Touko rarely gave, so at least some of those must have been with other people - “I think ‘Kaleidoscope’ would be a good crimefighter name. And Togami-kun could be Barrikuya.”

Touko pulled a face.

“I’m not a superhero,” she reminded everyone, but she fizzled out when Byakuya shot an icy look at her. He turned back to Jin and swished a hand.

“That name is stupid, but I suppose I can hear out the finer details of your proposal over dinner,” Byakuya drawled.

Jin’s previous smiles were up for interpretation, but this one was definite, and he bowed. “You won’t regret it, Togami.”

Byakuya finally lowered the barrier carrying him and Touko to the ground, and when he took a step forward, he revealed that the other barriers had disappeared too. Asahina slipped onto her friend’s shoulder. Bloodhound and Green Widower hobbled over with their arms around each other.

The man who could turn into diamond faced them. He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “Um... Sorry about all that. I get carried away when I’m fighting sometimes.”

Bloodhound sneered with a bloody nose. Touko wished he would clean himself, or at the very least get his husband to do it for him.

“If I were a few years younger...” He trailed off. The tension in Bloodhound’s face faded and he broke into a grin. “But today’s today, yeah? And this is nothing a little time in a healing pod won’t fix. You’re not bad, kiddo. You’ve got potential. You all do.”

He gave them a thumbs up and guffawed. Then he had a coughing fit. Green Widower looked at him worriedly, and only once Bloodhound recomposed himself did Green Widower relax a bit.

“Thanks,” said the pompadour-bearing guy, equally cheerful, and he returned Bloodhound’s gesture by thrusting up his thumb. “Hey, Togami, how’s about I buy us all a round of beer? My treat. We did a number on your heroes and I know we didn’t land a hit on you or your girlfriend, but she looked pretty freaked out, and I feel kinda bad about that.”

Toward the end of his offer, the man’s face darkened a little, though he maintained his smile. A muscle jumped in Byakuya’s cheek but he said nothing back. 

“G-Girlfriend!” Touko said, hands over her heart. Bloodhound ignored her.

“Are you even old enough to drink?” Bloodhound asked.

“Don’t make me give you another thrashing,” responded the man with the pompadour but without any malice, and they both burst out laughing.

Asahina turned to the white-haired woman, who shrugged. The one with violet hair folded her arms over her chest and the man with thick eyebrows tilted his head to one side.

“I’m done here,” said Byakuya. He adjusted his glasses and marched toward the doors leading out of the factory. Touko hurried after him.

Koichi cupped a hand beside his mouth and craned his neck. “So that’s dinner and beer, right? Is tonight good?”

“Tonight is fine,” said Byakuya, not wavering in his pace. 

Touko and Byakuya continued on in silence, but just before they arrived at the doors, Byakuya stopped, and Touko halted abruptly right after.

“One more thing.” Byakuya whipped his head around. His eyes narrowed. “She’s not my girlfriend.”

He grabbed her left wrist and raised her arm, to better show off the ring on one of fingers.

“She’s my fiancée.”

**Author's Note:**

> For the TogaFuka Gift Exchange. <3 Even though only a few canon characters appeared in this, I planned superhero names/powers for the whole DR1 cast and drew the costumes for Green Widower and Bloodhound.


End file.
